NFL
Favre works out, says shoulder is sore
MINNEAPOLIS — Brett Favre worked out with a high school football team Wednesday, then said his arm wasn’t yet ready for him to commit to joining the Minnesota Vikings.
Favre was interviewed by WDAM-TV in Hattiesburg, Miss., after throwing to players from Oak Grove High School during offseason workouts. He had arthroscopic surgery on a partially torn biceps tendon in his right shoulder on May 22, performed by Dr. James Andrews, and said he felt some pain on Wednesday.
“Dr. Andrews said more or less four weeks you should know if [surgery] was completely successful,” Favre said. “I threw a couple of balls today where I really felt it . . . different places in my shoulder where it’s sore.
“I threw the ball OK, but OK isn’t good enough in the National Football League. At least not for me. So it’s got to get better.”
Favre didn’t give a deadline for his decision, but seemed to indicate it wouldn’t be long.
“There is time, but there isn’t time, if that makes sense. I don’t need to wait for camp to say it’s 100 percent. I need to know before then, and so do the Vikings.”
Favre spoke about his courtship with the Vikings for the first time Monday on HBO.
On Wednesday he said, “I know people are, like I said on TV the other night, are about fed up with it. That’s fine. It’s my life, and I’m trying to figure out what to do.”
Meanwhile, Vikings tight end Visanthe Shiancoe said players aren’t assuming Favre is going to be the team’s quarterback this season—even though Favre referenced the Vikings as “we” during the HBO interview.
“We all know that we’re interested in him and he’s interested in coming here, but when he says ‘we’ it’s kind of like it has to [officially] happen before we pay heed to it,” Shiancoe said.
Shiancoe said there is no question in his mind that Favre simply is trying to decide if he can play.
“It all depends on his throwing arm, and we understand that,” Shiancoe said.
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Around the league
• Free agent Derrick Brooks said he plans to play in the NFL this fall and possibly even return to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a team he led to a Super Bowl victory. The NFL Defensive Player of the Year when Tampa Bay won the Super Bowl after the 2002 season, Brooks was among five players the Bucs cut in a February purge.
• The Giants and Jets are willing to wait for the right price before selling the naming rights to their new $1.6 billion stadium in the New Jersey Meadowlands. Giants chief executive John Mara said a deal is not close and emphasized that the two NFL teams would not reach an agreement just to have one in place when the 2010 football season opens.
• Former NFL quarterback Ryan Leaf was in custody in Washington State on drug and burglary charges out of Texas after being arrested by customs agents as he returned to the United States from Canada. James Farren, the district attorney in Randall County in West Texas, said Leaf was arrested Wednesday by federal customs agents.
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